Trash and treasure

Page Tools

In all its glorious exploration of the trivial and detailed, the
internet can often come up short on some of the basic but important
questions. But you can get a good schooling of a basic how-to
variety at eHow. The site offers clear step-by-step instructions
across a wide variety of human skills and knowledge, from car
maintenance to everyday etiquette, art appreciation to stock market
investment. The site also includes a "wiki" area where users can
contribute their own how-to pages as part of an effort to build the
world's largest how-to manual. Make a request for something you
want to learn that is yet to be covered or offer your own
know-how.

We may have the capacity to buy anything we'd like from anywhere
in the world, but we still have to pay in Aussie dollars.
Calculating how much an item is going to cost can be fiddly,
particularly when comparison shopping across sites from different
countries. XE.com makes the process easier, offering simple access
to current exchange rates, with a simple table of important rates
for quick reference plus an entry form for performing specific
dollar-value conversions. If the choice of 20 major currencies
included on the main page's conversion list isn't enough, click
through to the universal conversion tool and get access to the 85
currencies plus other conversions. Buy in Costa Rican colones with
confidence!

All that online auction hullabaloo actually requires you to have
some money. So why not get back into the tradition of bartering? It
looks a lot like an auction site, but here you can offer to swap
something you already have for something you like. The site
features a large collection of CDs, books and collectables, along
with auto parts, fashion and even services. If your swap isn't an
equal fit, you can add a little cash to the trade for balance.
There is a $US1 ($1.28) flat fee charged on exchanges but listings
are free and never expire, so if you don't find a swap, you'll
never pay a cent.

One of the web's most entertaining cartoon sites. Hundreds of
short Flash animations that feature a colourful collection of
characters, including Homestar himself, Strong Bad, Pom Pom,
Marzipan and the King of Town. The music, the imagery and voice
acting are great, and the formula means there is something both
kids and adults will get out of it. Interactive holiday videos
abound, but the massive hit of the site is the Strong Bad emails,
where Strong Bad has adventures each week as part of responding to
fan messages. This is where Strong Bad created Trogdor the
Burninator, later referenced in the final episode of
Buffy. You know you're big when you've become a TV
pop-culture reference.

Here is one woman's motorcycle diary of the ghost town that is
Chernobyl. Elena is a biker from Kiev who likes to ride in the area
devastated by the 1986 nuclear disaster, where you can ride fast
with no traffic, no lights and no police. Presenting photos and
descriptions of what she has seen, the site offers a deep
exploration of this town and its surrounds almost 20 years after
the incident and an estimated 500 years before it will become
habitable again. Full of eerie and strange images of an empty city
so rapidly abandoned, Elena's observations can be quite stirring. A
bizarre site offering a unique insight into a surreal space usually
remembered only in name.